Tag Archive for Treasury Offset Program

As the 2015 tax season approaches, you may be getting excited about your potential tax refund.

However, that excitement may be premature if you have outstanding federal or state debts. The Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS) issues federal tax refunds, and Congress authorizes BFS to reduce your refund through its Treasury Offset Program (TOP) to pay:

It was recently reported in the press that the Social Security Administration was collecting old debts of many deceased persons by intercepting the tax refunds of their children. After much unwanted publicity, the Social Security Administration announced it would stop doing this with regard to debts that were over ten years old. What implications does this case raise for tax noncompliant expatriates?

The case of the Social Security Administration is quite alarming and raises serious concerns for persons with unpaid US tax liabilities. It is widely reported and recognized that there has been a vast increase in expatriations. I suspect that some expatriations will involve taxpayers who were not fully tax compliant and I foresee that this area is ripe for IRS audit and controversy. Read more

Current Articles

Banks holding less than $1 billion in assets could receive an exemption from the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404(b) under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Under S. 1962, the Community […]

In a rather swift and harsh judgment, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s decision in favor of the IRS, which assessed an approximately $1.2 million penalty against a taxpayer […]